Having recently been jailbroken the iPhone 4 has been opened up to an expansive new world of apps, tweaks and mods. One of the first tweaks I was looking forward to was Safari Download Manager and much to my dismay I found it to be incompatible with iOS 4. I attempted to use the Safari DL Plugin which is inadequate at best. In my search to fill the feature void I found myself relegated to Filer, a decent downloaded app from the app store. While it somewhat fulfilled my needs it was still a bit of a pain browsing and coming across something I sought to download, the ensuing steps either required copying the download link into filer or simply navigating to the page with filer's built-in browser and later navigating to the file in iFile. While this was an acceptable solution and even a half decent downloader I really would love those features in a browser rather than using the subpar solution built-in to filer. So began my search for a browser alternative which led me to iCab. Though iCab at times feels a bit unpolished and perhaps clumsy it offers an extremely feature rich alternative to Mobile Safari. With basically all of safari's features implemented in one way or another and the addition of a built in download manager, full screen browsing, installable modules for a plethora of other useful features including a source viewer, translations and many other goodies. iCab has also blessed us with multiple search engines, search in page, annoying ad filtering, security and privacy settings and a variety of customizations and configurations.

Some qualms I have are iCabs tabbed browsing implementation as I prefer safari's card style version. Also the search function could be improved upon; when one opts to search for something they must either select their preferred search engine as oppossed to a default in the app settings. This could for some be preferable as well as the tabbed browsing style provided with iCab. It really boils down to personal preference. Another caveat is the search in page implementation as its option exists in the standard search panel. The controls also take some but of getting used to for the mobile safari veteran though I'm sure it will come with time though the option of customizing the lower tool bar would certainly be welcomed!

Though I have only used iCab for a short while now I find it to be a great functional mobile safari alternative. I certainly prefer iCab to Opera on iOS. I have found it to have basically identical performance to safari and I assume it uses WebKit which allows for our beloved multi-touch gestures. While iCab still needs some polishing and tweaking I find it to be a great piece of software and well worth the few bucks. It may, in short order, actually replace mobile safari on my iPhone.

With all that said I'd love to hear some community input...What's your favorite third party browser? What have other peoples experiences with iCab been? Let me know!

Ive been using Opera Mini since it came out. Sure its got problems and doesnt load some of my pages right and the zoom only goes one level but its so fast. On EDGE it loads like it does on WIFI on Safari :P

I think opera has some really nice features, luckily for me I live in an area with consistent 3G...the thing that I really can't stand about opera mini is it's zoom feature or lack thereof. Thats the main reason I stopped using it.